THE INAUGURATION THE ROCKETTE5 GO 50UTH -. .../.- . . . . :-'"_-. ^ 11 aboard the train to Washington, r-lD.C., and the Inaugural celebra- tion! All aboard, not with businesspeople and their laptops but with twenty-five women who, taken together, could be considered a New York institution, like the Empire State Building, if the Em- pire State Building were about five feet ten inches tall and had really long legs. All aboard with Becky Downing, who danced in "The Will Rogers Follies," on Broadway; with Eileen Grace, who sometimes dances on cruise ships; with Susan Heart, who teaches Pilates at Power Pilates, on East Fifty-seventh Street, when she's not in America's most famous chorus line. All aboard with Melissa Rae Mahon, who danced in the very last per- fonnance of "Cats"; with Michelle Ham- mar, who dances amid cars at auto shows; with Liz Maurer, who recently moon- lighted as David Copperfield's assistant, which doesn't involve much dancing ("1 was cut in half and I was transported, and I guess I disappeared a lot," she said). All aboard the 10 A.M. Metroliner, on the day before last Thursday's Inaugural opening gala performance by the stars of Radio City's "Christmas SpectactÙar." All aboard with the Rockettes! The Rockettes had a Metroliner car to themselves, and they were spread out and drinking coffee as they raced south through the New Jersey Meadowlands to their big sho To pass the time, theywere studying (a course to become a personal trainer), reading ("It's a Chick Thing: Celebrating the Wild Side of Women's Friendship"), and talking on cell phones ("We're dancing for President Bush! I know!"). Tara Bradley was showing off pictures of her daughter, who is twenty- two months old, to Jennifer Jones, whose daughter is two. Another Rockette was demonstrating how to turn the train seats around to accommodate four people. Perhaps in keeping with the theme of the gala, "Bringing America Together," the Rockettes did not participate in a lot of heated political discussion. One Rock- ette had danced for President Bush's fa- ther in a performance of "VictorNicto- ria," in Houston, a few years ago, and hoped to meet the new President Bush. Another Rockette, Heather Dee Perry; had danced on numerous occasions for fonner President Clinton as a member of the Coral Reeferettes, dancers with Jimmy Buffett's band, and had even stayed at the White House overnight, although she cOlÙd not recall which room she'd slept in. The closest anyone came to par- tisanship was in a conversation between Michelle Imor and Jennifer Marquardt. Michelle's boyfriend is a native of Aus- tria, and so is Jennifer's husband, and they were comparing notes. ("He didn't know what 'The Dukes of Hazzard' was." . . . "I only have to cook schnitzel once a month." . . . "They maybe have some folk dancing there, but they don't have the big shows.") Somewhere in Maryland, they realized that their Austrian signifi- cant others had both supported AI Gore. NINE QUESTION5 YOU CAN A5K DURING A CO-OP-BOARD INTERVIEW NOW THAT THE REAL-ESTATE MARKET 15 DOWN 1. "Sorry I'm an hour late. I didn't keep you waiting, did I?" 2. "How's the water pressure in this building? I have some rather unique needs in that department." 3. "I see you allow dogs. How ....." manyr 4. "Do you guys need to meet my posse before making a final decision?" 5. '1\re the doonnen discreet?" 6. "Did you hear that? Sh-h-h! There it is again!" 7. "A standard bale of cotton is fifty- five inches wide. But the freight elevator door is only fifty-three inches across. Just what, if I may ask, does the board intend to do about this?" 8. "Is it just me, or do you agree t:4at the city zoning board is coming damn close to playing God in the matter of determining the fine line between a hobby and a business?" 9. "Maybe it's the booze talking, but I'm feeling a lot of love in this room. Neighbors or what?" -Mark Golin 36 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 29, 2001 Two men were travelling with the women: Bruce Michael, the Rockettes' creative producer, and John Dietrich, their choreographer. They were all business: the Rockette generals preparing for the Rockettes' landing on the beach-the beach, in this case, being the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was the :first time in the Rockettes' seventy-five-year history that they wotÙd dance at an Inaugural event, and Dietrich had decided that they should perform a piece he had arranged entitled "Parade." "Instead of doing something really patriotic, we're doing something more Americana," he said. At 1 P.M., the Rockettes pulled into Union Station. The bus driver who picked them up cruised through Wash- ington and finagled his way past the pre- Inaugural security on the Mall. "I got the Rockettes," he told a guard. There was only one hour for rehearsal. The first crisis was that the Rockettes' tap shoes wouldn't work on the rubber- padded stage. The second was that there was no dressing room. "We'll have the girls change on the bus," Michael said. In a few minutes, the Rockettes were in their rehearsal sweats and were oohing and aahing at the monument-strewn Wash- ington panorama as a bunch of military officers, standing in for the Presidential entourage, oohed and aahed at them. "O.K., so listen, you guys, here are all the changes!" Dietrich said, and imme- diately the Rockettes were at attention. They waited for some fighter planes to fly over and for several Army paratroopers to parachute out over the stage, and then a stand-in for Larry King, who would introduce them in the actual show, said, "The Rockettes!" Dietrich said, "O.K., and bump-da-da- bump-da-da-bump!" On the first run-through, it looked as if the Rockettes' high kick would knock the musicians over, even though they weren't yet kicking at full power. They did another run-through, after which one of the Bush Inaugural officials (raincoat, cell phone) asked if her mother cotÙd pose with a Rockette for a photo. Then the music came up for the final time. When the big kick came, it was really big. A recently landed paratrooper put his video camera on the ground to film them. Michael looked around at the view; and at the Jumbotron screens out on the Mall. "I'm feeling quite moved," he said -Robert Sullivan